Greetings!

Down to the count-down to Christmas. I'm interested in the response to cards this year. For the past while, I have been having photocopies made of the photograph of a painting. Then I've glued that down onto a card, written on the inside, identified the painting on the back - and so on. This year I used the computer program to select a card design (plain- all photo) and took an I-photo image of my painting. Then I selected the writing for inside and ordered them from Apple. They came all nicely packaged. I felt that the quality of paint shows up better. Slightly more money but a lot less work. The drawback was that the *whole* painting wouldn't fit the card shape and there was nothing to be done except show part of it. So far, people are quite enthusiastic about the card.I painted this picture because I liked the idea of two kinds of lanterns.I think we need all the light possible in a winter-dark season. The main lantern is an actual miner's lantern that my Dad used in his mining career. Later, he wired it so it could be used with a light bulb. I used "artistic license" to not show the cord. I'm wondering how it would look with a larger painting ("Lanterns" is only 10" x 20") as to showing brushwork and so on. I guess I'll have to wait and see about that... So... Happy Holidays to all!

Lanterns at Omega

I was up at Omega Gallery today - and noted that traffic definitely seemed lighter. Could it be that more people decided that the Canada Line is the way to go? It certainly makes it easy if you are going downtown but it doesn't work for going to Dunbar with canvases in the trunk! Tien Ching decided to keep five for now. One is "Blink" from a couple of blogs ago and one is "Lanterns" which I'll post here. The miner's lantern is a real one that was actually used by my Dad at Coleman, Alberta. Later, he wired it so it could be used as a lamp. I don't actually use it but I'm glad to have it as a bit of history with a personal connection. Tien is not displaying these paintings right now but a person can always ask to see them! This was interesting to set up - first I had a lighter background because I liked the cast shadows of the lantern plant (Physalis alkekengi ) but then it didn't seem right to have a miner's lantern sitting out in the light, so I re-draped the stand and settled on the darker background. After adjusting the light, I was fairly pleased as I felt it captured the glow that lanterns provide.